In most living rooms multiple user devices may be present that can be controlled with a remote control from a distance. Traditionally, such devices include televisions, audio systems and DVD or Blu-ray players, but the number of remotely controllable devices is steadily growing. For example there can be lamps allowing to remotely set color or dimming levels. Another example is an air control system where the air flow or temperature may be controlled.
A known problem is that the number of different remote control devices in a traditional setup corresponds with the number of remotely controllable devices present in the room, i.e. each device has its own remote controller. To users this is experienced as a nuisance, e.g. having to find the correct remote controller or requiring to understand all the functions that are available for control. Already for quite some years, this has led to the integration of control functions for various devices into one controller, and the development of universal controllers that can be programmed to be associated with various devices. With the wide spreading and development of smart phones and tablets, such functions may nowadays be controlled via applications with dedicated menus.
The above developments, however, do not completely resolve the problem. Most remote controllers or apps are still only suitable for controlling certain types of devices, e.g. only lighting or only multimedia devices. Moreover, the existing solutions do not provide a solution in the case a multitude of devices (e.g. lamps) of the same type is to be controlled. The control application needs to know the address of the lamp that needs to be controlled. The user may try to remember device addresses, but that gets difficult when the number of devices grows and evidently this is not the most user friendly solution.
Some remote controllers are nowadays available that allow selection of a to-be-controlled user device by means of pointing to the device. An example of such a remote controller device is described in International patent application WO 2006/079939. This document describes a pointing device that can be pointed at user device to-be-controlled, and that sends triggers targeted to each device sequentially to cause these devices to send a visual identifier. The system described assists in overcoming some of the above described issues, although some user action is required to target the desired device for triggering.